Friday, February 4, 2011

Full Employment

Greetings good citizen,

It must be difficult trying to make sense of the musings of someone whose drummer is so far out of synch with the rest!

Yeah, that’s just acknowledging that I’m more than a little ‘different’.

But what the hell do you learn if you only read the musings of people who agree with you?

In that respect, good citizen, you are ‘enlightened’; if only for your willingness to flirt with ideas that are often outside most people's ‘comfort zone’.

You at least realize that life isn’t meant to be good or bad, life simply is.

The good and the bad parts are BOTH up to you (and therefore, relative.)

(Didn’t see that one coming; did you?)

Speaking of the musings of others, tonight’s offering centers on that most elusive of all ‘social goods’ Full Employment

I (naturally) didn’t read the WHOLE article (but I did ‘scan’ the whole thing using the ‘view as a single page’ option)

And guess what this article ISN’T about?

It’s not about how to achieve the stated goal; that’s for sure!

It does state at the conclusion of the article that the problem, like all things economic, is largely political.

We COULD solve the unemployment crisis TOMORROW but, naturally, that isn’t what those who hold us hostage to our basic needs want.

The ‘solution’ to this, er, ‘conflict of interest’ lies in rope, lots and lots of rope.

Rope dangling from high places. You don’t ‘need’ a formal gibbet to hang a traitor, it is perfectly acceptable to ‘improvise’.

Wake up good citizen! THE PEOPLE ARE THE LAW!

We have become so ‘removed’ from the decision making process that we have forgotten they need our consent!

A consent that they have, for far too long, taken for granted.

No, I chose today’s topic to explore the ‘realities’ hiding behind the HEAVILY MASSAGED unemployment figures.

The article actually points to certain ‘data points’ without providing ‘context’.

Since Barack Obama entered office in January 2009, the official unemployment rate has averaged more than 9.5 percent, representing some fifteen million people in a labor force of about 154 million.

What ‘hits you in the eye’ right off the bat?

Two things, first, the US has NEVER employed 154 million people, I believe 140 is as good as it got back when everybody and their uncle was forging bad paper for the banks!

But that’s just a ‘detail’, the ‘roughly half’ figure they like to use includes the ‘estimated underground economy’.

IF you look at the actual census bureau figures you’d see that the number of ‘working aged US Citizens is actually north of 211 million…so where the fuck do they get this 154 million number?

Oh, and make no mistake about it good citizen, the ‘employed’ numbers include EVERYBODY that works! (Even if they only work a couple of hours a week!) While our minds mistakenly interpret the roughly 130 million people who are counted as ‘employed’ as being employed ‘full time’.

The big, er, ‘error’ here is this number is roughly half of the total. That’s how many ‘part-timers’ this fucked up economic system supports.

Worse, if we start looking at the work week we’d see that the ‘average’ has been hovering around 30 hours for years now.

So MOST workers DO NOT work forty hours a week.

Then there is the ‘full employment’ puzzle, apparently ‘full employment’ DOESN’T mean ‘jobs all around’.

No, Full employment has a 5% ‘structural unemployment’ figure built into it.

If ‘official’ unemployment drops below 5% of the ‘official civilian workforce’ we are said to enjoy ‘full employment’.

This is more ‘fun with numbers’. You are aware, of course, that the nation’s population now exceeds 300 million.

5% of that number is fifteen million people! Relegate 15 million people to the scrap heap of society and write it off as ‘collateral damage’.

THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT! (And the fuckers shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it!)

It’s time to say it again…do you already know what I’m going to say?

What’s the ‘magic phrase’?

That’s right! Mismanagement!

How long will we let the fuckers hide behind (badly manipulated) data?

Just because they’ve been ‘getting away with it for years’ doesn’t mean we have to put up with it!

I don’t know about you good citizen, but I’m getting mighty sick of this nonsense.

No irony should be lost that it has been precisely this sort of ‘creative accounting’ that put us here in the first place!

If we don’t put a stop to it our entire civilization will collapse!

But, naturally, that’s just ‘crazy talk’.

The official figures tell us things are getting better with each passing day. Why just look at the Stock Market, it’s recovered so much! (What does the stock market measure again? Oh yeah, how rich the already rich are!)

Which is truly disturbing when you consider that all things financial are ‘funny’ (as in counterfeit, not ‘humorous’)

Constant reader knows that A Simple Plan solves the crisis created by automation and provides true full employment (at living wages no less!)

In a more ‘sensibly arranged’ world we won’t run out of resources as rapidly as the rapacious capitalists would.

Contrary to, er, popular belief (of the political leadership of this country) the ‘well’ is not limitless. We MUST take steps to ‘manage’ what remains, not for the profitability of the false owners but for the future of ALL of our children!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

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